Making Memories in Muscat

Living in Dubai I feel that I often take for granted the opportunities that we have to travel, and the counties that we can visit that are right on our doorstep! Oman is a country I have wanted to visit for a while now, having only previously crossed the borders for my visa run when I first moved to Dubai almost four years ago. I also realised I haven’t actually visited any other Gulf countries since living in Dubai! We try to make the most of the public holidays and long weekends, so with this years National Day weekend I decided to book a surprise trip for Ryan and I to Muscat.

The flight to Muscat from Dubai is less than an hour so I literally booked the cheapest flight option available. Flying on the Thursday night after work, we reached Muscat by 9.15pm and were at our hotel within the hour. Before booking this trip, I had read online that you could pick up taxis from the airport relatively cheap – in fact they were half the price offered by the hotels and also metered. I had also read about an app called O-Taxi, which is the Uber equivalent in Oman and it connects you to local taxis. Although the taxis weren’t always available, the app tells you the journey fare which was a good bartering tool for the non-metered taxis.

When we arrived at our hotel we decided to have a quick turn around and pop down to the Lazy Lizard pool bar in our hotel for some causal drinks to start our long weekend. We stayed at the Radisson Blu and I managed to get a good deal by booking direct through the hotel and using the Entertainer voucher for a free nights stay.

Dolphin sightseeing trip

We used the O-Taxi app to take us from our hotel to the Marina Bandah where our dolphin boat trip was starting with Captain Salim. We were only joined by one other couple but the price remained at 25 OR per person (if the boat has 10 people or more then the price is reduced to 20 OR pp). We spent approximately an hour and a half searching for the dolphins but sadly we didn’t see any on any our trip. So our captain took us to a hidden location for snorkelling.

I’ve always been a confident swimmer but I knocked my confidence when we were in Bali a few years ago and I had a panic attack at sea. I tried to overcome it on a staycation in Fujairah a few months later but the same thing happened again. But at the start of the year I was determined to overcome it when we were in the Philippines and we had an amazing time group snorkelling. So this weekend, I felt more confident when we snorkelled off the boat together. Every time we have visited Asia we’ve hoped to be lucky enough to swim with a turtle but we’ve just never seen one! But this weekend within a few minutes of being in the sea we saw two turtles swimming together. We swam above them and followed them as they ate, one even came up for air just a few inches away from me and I was able to touch it’s shell. We then saw five more mooching around at different parts of the coral – this was definitely a bucket list moment for me!

There’s a lovely restaurant in the Marina called Blue Marlin so we sat and had some lunch after the trip. It was the perfect temperature to sit outside, I had fresh prawns with garlic and chilli and Ryan had the fresh snapper fish sandwich, all of which was delicious!

That evening, we made a reservation at The Chedi in the Beach Restaurant. The hotel was absolutely stunning and as we approached the restaurant the walk way was lit with fire and we sat outside on the terrace which was lined with fire pits on the beach front. It was a really romantic setting for dinner. To start, Ryan had mussels (obviously) and I had the seared salmon carpaccio which was beautiful! For our main, we shared the mixed seafood platter and a bottle of wine. The local gentleman behind us was kind enough to send us each over a glass of red wine so we went over to say thank you and he asked us to join him and his family for a drink which was lovely. Omani people are some of the friendliest I have ever met.

Wadi Shab

One of the main reasons we wanted to visit muscat was to visit the Wadi Shab and although most people do this trip alone, I decided to book a tour guide through Oman Day Tours. Our driver picked us up at 8am and we drove two hours out of muscat along the coast line to Tiwi to spend the morning at the Wadi Shab.

When you arrive at the Wadi Shab parking area you have to take a boat across a small lake to begin the hike. The only way to cross the lake is via boat and they have a company which runs boats across daily for a small charge. From there, we had a 45 minute hike through semi-mountainous terrain. We wore normal gym trainers for this part which of was fine. As we walked further we felt like we were entering Jurassic World! It’s such a unique place with palm trees and greenery growing inside a valley in the mountains, I’ve never seen anything like it before.

We stopped to swim after 45 minutes of walking and chose a spot to leave our items. We then entered the Wadi and swam for another 30 minutes! The water was the perfect temperature and it felt so refreshing to swim in the fresh mountain water. One thing I would strongly advise to take on this trip is waterproof shoes to wear in the water, as part of it is shallow and very stony, and also a waterproof camera! I can’t believe we forgot to take the GoPro with us! Some parts of the Wadi were super deep and people were climbing up and jumping off the cliffs!

At the end of the Wadi there’s a small gap in the caves that you can swim through. The gap is so small that only your neck and head can be above water to swim through it, the rest of your body needs to be under the water. I would never have dared swim through here if we were not with our guide. But, the other side was completely breathtaking and had inside it a natural waterfall flowing down from the mountains!

After the 30 minute swim, 45 minute hike and boat trip out of the Wadi were exhausted and went to a local Omani restaurant for some traditional food for lunch. On our way back to Muscat, we stopped at Bimmah Sinkhole, another natural beauty of Oman. Locals believe that it was created by a meteorite thousands of years ago but now, it is filled with a mixture of fresh and salt water which you can swim in!

On our final day we were so exhausted by all of the adventures that we slept in until midday and ordered room service, before checking out and heading back to Dubai. I thoroughly enjoyed our long weekend in Muscat and I have already started looking into other trips that we can take back to Oman! I would love to do a hiking trip in Jebel Jais, visit the pink lake in Jalan Bani Bu Ali (on the far east coast) as well as taking a trip down to Salalah – so if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

This is a great trip. The first time I went to Wadi Shab, my friends and I were wearing hiking boots, and as we walked into the canyon, we were continually being met by barefoot Omanis leaving. I felt embarrassed to be a tender-foot Westerner. 🙂

Next time you visit Muscat, book one of the day trips out to the Damaniyat Islands just offshore from Al Sawadi near Barka. The seas can be a bit rough but the snorkeling is great. Just spending time on the boat and enjoying the scenery is also totally worth it.